Tired Of The Results You Are Seeing?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  If you are not pleased with the results you are seeing in a given ministry or program, make a change.

Positive change requires vision.  Vision is always needed to begin a new ministry or program, but it is also needed to continue it.  We too often allow vision to guide us to begin something, but then leave vision out of the picture when growth or decrease begin to happen.  It will take constant vision casting to cause a given ministry to continue to have growth....

How important are relationships anyway?

Relationships. A good relationship can make you, but a bad relationship can destroy you. The chance we take to have a good relationship is almost not worth the risk to many people. They have been so hurt by relationships that they choose rather to become introvert and avoid relationships with other people at all costs. Their way of avoiding another painful experience is to avoid all close relationships....

When No One Cares Who Gets The Credit

There is no limit to what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit.  It is important to cast a vision of servanthood to lay leaders and those in the church who serve the body of Christ.

Preach servanthood.  There can be no greater example of servanthood than Jesus Christ.  He was someone who could have expected everyone to serve Him.  However he continually offered himself as the servant of all.  You get what you preach.  If the church needs to be reminded to serve one another, Preach servanthood....

Some Announcement Pointers

All churches must learn to use their announcements as a tool to create anticipation and excitement for the future growth of the church, both short and long term.

Announcements are part of the 'marketing' campaign of the Church. Why is it that corporations will spend millions of dollars and months of planning on their 'announcing', yet we spend very little time and money concerning the marketing of our church and its events.....

The Witnesses: Amy Wilson Carmichael

(1867-1951)

Amy Wilson Carmichael was born December 16, 1867 in a small village in Northern Ireland. Her parents were evangelical Christians and she committed her life to Christ's service at a very young age. 

One story of Amy’s childhood noted that when she was little, she always wished she’d had blue eyes instead of brown. As a little girl, she prayed for God to give her blue eyes, but she never received them. 

Carmichael was the founder of a women’s group in Belfast that quickly grew to over 500 women and they needed a larger place in which to meet. She saw an ad in a newspaper saying an iron building could be built for £500 that would seat up to 500 people. A donation and a plot of land were given, and the building of the first “Welcome Hall” was built.

Amy felt led to fulfill her call in missions. In many ways, she was an unlikely candidate for missionary work. She suffered neuralgia--a disease of the nerves that made her whole body weak and achy--and she was often bedridden for weeks on end.

At the 1887 Keswick Convention, she heard Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, speak about missionary life. Initially, Amy travelled to Japan for fifteen months, but she later found her lifelong vocation in India.

When Brethren Disagree

How do you handle disagreements among brethren? The following article appeared in Brother T.F. Tenney’s book, “Advice to Pastors and Other Saints.” It gives excellent advice concerning how to get along.

• Keep the disagreement in perspective. Don’t reject the person because he or she has a different opinion. A variety of opinions are the spices of life.
• Do not transfer the disagreement to other areas.....

Winning People Long Term

Most pastors would sacrifice everything they have to know a sure way of winning people long term. The truth is, most of us have personally won very few people that are still with us to this day. I have looked around my church recently, and I could find only two men in our church that I have been personally involved in winning to the Lord.

Winning these men actually began about four years ago. When I say long term, I am talking about a period of time of at least two years, preferably more. During that time I have been a witness to many more people than these two. I have baptized many more than that. I have taught bible studies to dozens of people. Many have received the Holy Ghost. Yet there are only two that have stayed in the church long term. Why only two? Why not more? Is there something wrong with me and my approach? How can I improve in this area? They say that hindsight is 20/20. During this article I want to go back in time to see what it was that worked, and what it was that didn't work.

The first thing that I can say without a doubt is that you must have a passion and a love for people. If you don't, they are going to sense that within a very short amount of time, and they will be gone. We must understand that it can be a very lonely time when somebody comes into the church. They are often leaving behind most of everything that they know and love. The Bible says...

Luke 14:26

26 "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters — yes, even one's own self! — can't be my disciple.

Luke 14:33

33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

Why does it work in other churches, but not in our church?

One question we often hear is "Why does it work in other churches, but not in our church?" We recently came across these five reasons: 

1. One church may be in a small rural community where it is easy to develop close personal relationships.  Another may be in a big city where shallow impersonal relationships are the standard.  (In the country they all wave to each other – even to strangers.  In the metro areas, they don’t speak to one another even when they walk abreast on the streets.
2. One town may have a growing populating while another may have a shrinking population.  Industry is brining people into one area and as a result the pews seem to fill up all by themselves.  Factory shutdowns may be causing another town to be losing its population, hence it looks like the church is not doing a good job since it too is shrinking......

The Power Of Expository Preaching

Stephen Olford defines expository preaching this way;

"Expository preaching is the Spirit-empowered explanation and proclamation of the text of God's Word with due regard to the historical, contextual, grammatical and doctrinal significance of the given message or given passage, with the specific object of invoking a Christ transforming response."

That is a pretty heavy definition, let me simplify; "The text  does the talking, the preaching, the teaching and the transforming." The message is already there, you just have to open it up and discover it for yourself. Expository preaching forces the man of God to open his own heart first and allow the scripture to change him before it ever changes his audience.

An expository sermon comes from a portion of text that is usually at least one paragraph in length, and where at least a good portion of the story is told in its context. For an expository sermon to have impact, the story of the text must be opened up to your audience. A casual reading and retelling of the scripture is not quite what it is about. Nor is it a step by step outline of each verse. There is a message in the story of the text that must be shared in a meaningful way......